It's (not) all Greek to me: Boundaries of the foreign language effect

Dylman, Alexandra S.; Champoux-Larsson, Marie-France

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104148

Cited by 39 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Cavar and Tytus (2018) also failed to find a language effect on moral decision-making in highly-acculturated Croatian-German bilinguals (but see Białek and Fugelsang 2019 for critique of their conclusions and Krautz andČavar 2019 for their responses). While Dylman and Champoux-Larsson (2020) found language effect on neither moral decisionmaking nor framing in highly acculturated Swedish-English bilinguals, Miozzo et al (2020) did find a language effect on moral dilemmas and framing bias in native Italian-Venetian and Italian-Bergamasque bilinguals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…As such, even the issue of whether FLe exists at all remains unresolved: some studies using FL populations have shown that foreign language decreases cognitive biases and increases benefit-maximizing inclinations (Keysar et al 2012;Costa et al 2014a;Geipel et al 2016;Dylman and Champoux-Larsson 2020), while others show the opposite (Hayakawa et al 2017;Muda et al 2018;Mills and Nicoladis 2020); some studies using highly proficient, acculturated bilinguals have found FLe (Brouwer 2020;Miozzo et al 2020), while others have not (Čavar and Tytus 2018; Brouwer 2019; Dylman and Champoux-Larsson 2020).…”

Section: Hypothesis Predictions For Heritage Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, a number of studies have used highly proficient acculturated bilinguals instead of FL learners to test the FLe (Čavar and Tytus 2018; Brouwer 2019, 2020; Dylman and Champoux-Larsson 2020;Miozzo et al 2020). The results are illuminating, but inconclusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Costa et al (2014a) and Vives et al (2018) included such problems in their studies of FL learners, but the recent studies that specifically looked at the FLe in highly proficient acculturated bilinguals employed only emotion-laden tasks. For example, Miozzo et al (2020) and Dylman and Champoux-Larsson (2020) used the Asian Disease Problem and the Footbridge Dilemma, Brouwer (2020) used personal and impersonal dilemmas, andČavar and Tytus (2018) used a number of moral dilemmas from Bartels (2008). In other words, as of yet early bilinguals have not been tested on unemotional tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can You Make Better Decisions If You Are Bilingual?

Kirova

Camacho

2021

Languages

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Studies have shown that “framing bias,” a phenomenon in which two different presentations of the same decision-making problem provoke different answers, is reduced in a foreign language (the Foreign Language effect, FLe). Three explanations have emerged to account for the difference. First, the cognitive enhancement hypothesis states that lower proficiency in the FL leads to slower, more deliberate processing, reducing the framing bias. Second, contradicting the previous, the cognitive overload hypothesis, states that the cognitive load actually induces speakers to make less rational decisions in the FL. Finally, the reduced emotionality hypothesis suggests that speakers have less of an emotional connection to a foreign language (FL), causing an increase in rational language processing. Previous FLe research has involved both FL and non-FL speakers such as highly proficient acculturated bilinguals. Our study extends this research program to a population of heritage speakers of Spanish (HS speakers), whose second language (English) is dominant and who have comparable emotional resonances in both of their languages. We compare emotion-neutral and emotion-laden tasks: if reduced emotionality causes the FLe, it should only be present in emotion-laden tasks, but if it is caused by cognitive load, it should be present across tasks. Ninety-eight HS speakers, with varying degrees of proficiency in Spanish, exhibited cognitive biases across a battery of tasks: framing bias appeared in both cognitive-emotional and purely cognitive tasks, consistent with previous studies. Language of presentation (and proficiency) did not have a significant effect on responses in cognitive-emotional tasks, but did have an effect on the purely-cognitive Disjunction fallacy task: HS speakers did better in their second, more proficient language, a result inconsistent with the reduced emotionality hypothesis. Moreover, higher proficiency in Spanish significantly improved the rate of correct responses, indicating that our results are consistent with the cognitive overload hypothesis.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Hypothesis Predictions For Heritage Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can You Make Better Decisions If You Are Bilingual?

Kirova

Camacho

2021

Languages

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“…Additionally, there is a large body of research showing that emotions are perceived less intensely in a second language (e.g., Caldwell-Harris, 2014Dylman & Bjärtå, 2018;Harris et al, 2003;Pavlenko, 2005;Puntoni et al, 2009) and it has been suggested that lower emotionality in a second language may explain why we tend to make different decisions in a second language compared to a first language (a phenomenon tokened as the Foreign Language effect, e.g., Cipolletti et al, 2016;Corey et al, 2017;Costa et al, 2014;Dylman & Champoux-Larsson, 2020;Geipel et al, 2015;Hayakawa et al, 2016;Keysar et al, 2012). Here, participants were only tested in their first language.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical investigation of the relationship between bilingualism and social flexibility

2021

Self Cite

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Recently, a relationship between bilingualism and enhanced social flexibility has been suggested. However, research on the subject is scarce and what little exists is limited by several conceptual and methodological concerns. In the current study, we attempted to (a) replicate the findings from a study by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21:957–969, 2018) by using the scales that the authors developed, and (b) test the concept of social flexibility experimentally with a switch-task using socially relevant stimuli. In the first part, participants (n = 194) filled out the scales developed by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza. We could not find that bilingualism leads to enhanced social flexibility. We did, however, find that higher level of education led to higher scores on the social flexibility scale. In the second part, a subsample (n = 74) from Part 1 completed a task where they were asked to identify the congruency between a face and a voice based on either gender or emotion, and to switch between these two tasks. The experimental task did not show an advantage for the bilingual participants. On the contrary, higher proficiency in a second language led to lower accuracy in the congruent emotion condition, while level of education led to higher accuracy in that same condition. We suggest that factors other than bilingualism, such as level of education and biculturalism, most likely drove the effect found both in the current study and originally by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza.

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